Circus in a Shot Glass

by Beth Overmyer

  With a heavy heart, a demotion, and no sign of the girl I fancied, I went inside only to find my tables being waited on by someone else and they didn’t need me washing the dishes. A night off, it looked like.

  There were still four hours ‘til midnight. I’d made no plans, as I’d assumed I’d be working into the new year. Maybe I’d return to my flat and watch the telly, if there was anything good on. Or I could go to another restaurant and eat out. Maybe catch a late film at the cinema.

  None of this sounded appealing in my current frame of mind, so I pardoned myself through the throng of couples and made my way to the park. There was going to be a fireworks display at midnight. Even now, the men were setting up.

  I sat on a cold metal bench underneath a giant redwood and shivered. I should’ve brought my jacket with me, but again I’d been leaping before I looked. My breath fogged up the air in front of me, and my hands began to grow numb.

  “Hey.”

  My heart leapt, somersaulted, and tumbled into the pit of my stomach. “Hello,” I said back.

  She smiled at me. “Is this seat taken?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  “—By you.”

  She laughed and sat down next to me at a more than respectable distance. “So, you get off early?” She stared down at her lap, where there still was a drink stain.

  I winced. “Is that going to come out?”

  “Of course. I’ve got mad stain-fighting skills.”

  It was my turn to laugh, if only half-heartedly.

  She quirked a half-smile when I chanced another glance at her. “So, what brings you here?”

  It was the last thing I wanted to talk about with her or anyone, so I none-too-coyly turned the tables. “Maybe the same thing that brought you here.” It was a lame answer, and we both knew it. It hung in the air between us, but she waved it away like a fly.

  “Oh, so your annoying brother insisted you treat him to dinner, too?”

  That changed my mood in a second flat. I tried to smother a smirk. “Your brother?”

  “Don’t play coy; you’re not good at it.”

  I laughed, and her face grew bright pink . . . though, it could’ve been from the cold. Time to rein this in. “Care to ring in the new year with me?”

  Her eyes widened.

  “What?” I said, feeling my confidence build. “You said don’t act coy. Apparently I’m not good at being forward either.”

  Her lips twitched, but her blush continued to deepen. “Skip will be waiting for me.”

  “Skip?”

  “Childhood nickname.”

  “Ah.” I watched our breaths fog up the air between us, mingling and twisting together until one could imagine a fire burning in our midst. But she was shivering, and I had no jacket to offer her, one of life’s small tragedies. “Do you want to—”

  Apparently she didn’t want to know what I was going to ask, because she interrupted me. “He’ll be gone soon. Back to job-hunting.”

  “Hmm?”

  “My brother.” Her shoulders heaved.

  “He’s just visiting for the holidays, then?”

  She shook her head. “He’s sticking around for the funeral.”

  That brought me up short. Funeral? What was I missing? “I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say. I was afraid to ask whose funeral. For one, I didn’t know her well enough—at all—to pry, and secondly . . . well, some information is best offered than asked for.

  “Thanks.” She stared down at her shoes. Heels, black and square-toed.

  I turned my attention to the crew members setting up the fireworks display. They wore deep orange turtlenecks with a black logo painted on them and a few had on hardhats. Some were welding, making quite the noise as white sparks flew in all directions. Others wrapped the area in security tape as folks became drawn to their commotion. I looked back at my bench-friend and was startled to see she was rising.

  “Well, I’d better get going. You going to be all right?”

  I blinked. “Are you?”

  Her painted lips turned up into a smile. “I always land on my feet. Hope you didn’t get fired because of me.” As soon as it was out of her mouth, she slapped her hand over her lips, her eyes large.

  I laughed. What was she talking about? “I wasn’t fired. And what makes you think it would’ve been your fault?”

  She grimaced and dropped her hand. “I may have heard you getting yelled at.”

  I was beyond flattered and floored. She must have followed me here from the restaurant . . . just to make sure I wasn’t in trouble. How unexpected. Right when I thought I had this country figured out, its people would surprise me with a burst of warmth.

  For someone who said they should get going, she didn’t seem all that much in a hurry.

  Maybe this evening wasn’t an entire waste after all. “Might I walk you back to wherever it is you’re going?”

  She wrinkled up her nose. “I can take care of myself.” It wasn’t said with anger, though she squared her shoulders and looked ready to argue the point.

  “Of course you can. I—please let me walk you back.” I wanted to tell her how I’d seen her that day, taking care of our mutual homeless friend, displaying such kindness and creativity. I wanted to ask her everything about herself. Where she came from, who she loved, who she hated, who she’d lost. I settled for the easiest of all. “What’s your name?”

  Her eyes sparkled in the dim light and she flashed me a coy smile and took off at a brisk walk.

  Ever one for the chase, I leapt to my feet and ran after her. “I’m Ardal, by the way.”

  She made it a few steps more, paused, and gave me a critical eye. “Care to walk me to my dorm, Ardal?”

  “You don’t think that’s a silly name?”

  “Of course it’s a silly name.” A pause. “But respectable.”

  I tipped an imaginary hat and extended an arm. “Happy New Year, miss.”

  There was a moment I thought she might continue on without me. But I needn’t have been worried. She held onto my arm and together we walked, each smirking at the other. “Happy New Year, Ardal.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Skip

  2006

  I met Julianna’s boyfriend the second time I got drunk. It was also on the day Mom moved into a small apartment, and I was being forced to find a place of my own. That’s why I was staying with Danny—who had cigarettes, which we both smoked as we reminisced about the good old days and chatted about the future. And we drank.

  We were sitting in the middle of his living room, watching reruns of a sixties TV show and laughing at everything. The butler we found the most hilarious, though sober we’d never in a thousand years have thought so. “Hey, give me more.”

  Danny took a drag and passed another cigarette to me. “I roll my own, you know.”

  I puffed on it appreciatively. “Nice.” I sucked in some more. “Has a sort of…earthy aftertaste or something.”

  He looked at me with a stupid grin and nodded at the big screen TV. “Wanna know how I afforded it?”

  Puff, puff.

  “Nope.”

  “Nice little business I’m in.” There was something in the way he said “business” that made me feel uneasy. It wasn’t like he was into something bad or illegal…right? What’s the worst thing Danny could do?

  Before I could ask him what he was up to, my phone rang to Julianna’s ringtone. I took another puff, coughed, and passed the tightly rolled paper back to my best friend. “Why’s she calling?”

  Danny put the cigarette out in the white carpet and leaned back against the side of the sofa. “Forget about her right now. She’s just going to ask if you got the gig.”

  And I didn’t, and yes she would ask. Crap. “Yeah, I know.” The crazy-happy ringtone was alien to how I was feeling at the moment. And Danny had to make it worse by asking,

  “You thinking of moving to NYC still?”

  I let out a deep sigh. “
Not sure how I’d afford it.” Not sure how I’m going to afford eating any more, either.

  Danny, he wiggled his eyebrows. “You could always come work for my contact.”

  “What, in New York?” I fished around in my pocket for my phone, which stopped ringing the second I touched it. “Rats Well, she can always leave a message, congratulating me on being a failure or something.”

  Danny threw back his head and laughed, revealing his browning molars and horrible bad breath. “You are one grouchy drunk. To answer your question: We have distributors everywhere.”

  I snorted, fighting off a gag. “What? Is this like organized crime or something?”

  He just shrugged and went to light up another one. “You didn’t hear anything like that from me, all right? I know people who could break your legs and then some.” He laughed, and I laughed, but he might’ve been serious.

  I looked around his living room. He did have a lot of nice things. A leather couch the size of a hippo, big screen TV, the latest gadgets, nice rugs...I’d been wondering where he got all his stuff. Did I want to know? Curiosity got the better of me and I pressed him a little for some answers. “This employer of yours.” I watched as the greenish-gray smoke filled the air. “It wouldn’t be anything illegal he’s in, right?”

  It was Danny’s turn to laugh again. “What??”

  I lit the new cigarette and took a drag. “So, what do you do?”

  “Stuff and things. Nothing too horrible.” I waited for him to continue, knowing full well he would, since he always found a way to brag on himself and share his adventures. “We deal in—well, you know.” He jerked the cigarette heavenward. “We also move stuff.”

  “Move stuff? What, like in moving vans or something?” We both guffawed and stared at the smoke detector. He’d yanked the battery out earlier after the device had gone off.

  “No, like, say a business orders too much—we resell it on the market.”

  I nodded. “So you buy overstock and jack up the price?” That sounded legit. So why was he being so cagey?

  Danny smirked. “You are so naive, it’s almost cute. No, we decide who has too much and help the have-nots have more. Get it?”

  My eyes widened and my mouth worked a few times before coherent words could escape. “So you steal stuff and sell it on the black market?”

  “Stealing is such a strong word.” He gestured around the room vaguely and took another sip of beer.

  “Yes, stealing is a strong word. But is it the correct one?”

  Now he looked almost mad. “You and your principles. Think you’re so high and mighty, don’t you? Well, I need the money. You need the money? We’ll just see who’s all hoity-toity when your next rent check is due.” He took a drag and laughed. “Sorry. I guess I’m a grouchy drunk, too.”

  I sat there thinking—well, as much as my drunken brain could think. Yeah, Danny had some nice stuff. But if I worked for his contact I would miss out on Broadway. There was also a good chance I’d wind up in jail. “Sorry, bro. But I think I’ll pass on your generous offer.”

  “Prude.”

  “For now. I need to see if I have the chops to make it with my acting. I’m so close to being Equity I can taste it.” Julianna started calling again, and this time I answered; all this thinking about right and wrong was giving me a fat headache. “Hey, sis.”

  “Hey, is it still all right if we come over now?” Julianna’s voice was all chirpy, the way it got when she was super-excited about something, like making it into the fashion design program at that big, fancy college.

  “You want to come over?” I asked, waving away the can of beer Danny was offering.

  “Yeah, you said I could bring the boyfriend over to officially meet you.”

  Shoot! Now was not a good time. I sat and thought about it for a moment, frowning. Did I know she still had a boyfriend? I wracked my brains and could only come up with the model guy or whoever he was. “Is it the guy from Home Ec.?”

  “Same guy for three years, Skip.” There was a deep chuckle in the background. So he was with her right now. “We’re out in the parking lot. Can you buzz us in?”

  My gaze darted over to Danny who looked about as drunk as I felt. “Er, now’s not a good time.”

  “Too bad. This is the only day that works for both of us this month.”

  Aw, man! “Listen, can’t we do this some other time this year? Christmas?”

  “No, I’ve been dying for you two to meet officially. He has some acting experience, Skip. Maybe you could get him into community theater or something.”

  I groaned. “Julianna, not every Tom, Dick, and Harry can act. Tell your boyfriend I said hello.” I started to pull the phone away from my face but thought the better of it when my sister said,

  “Skip, if you hang up on me, I swear I’m calling Mom and telling her you’re neglecting your sister.” Her voice had lost some of its chirpiness—thank goodness, but it had an edge of menace to it now, something I associated with my dad.

  A pause. “Mom wouldn’t care. I’m the golden boy, remember.”

  Danny laughed and started hacking up a lung.

  Julianna groaned. “Come on, Skip!”

  “Fine! Quit whining.”

  She squealed into the mouthpiece, causing me to jerk the phone away from my head. “All right, buzz us in.”

  “All right, all right. But no more shrieking. I think you broke my eardrum.” I stumbled to my feet and made my sluggish way to the door. I hit the buzzer and looked at Danny, who was getting more and more out of it by the second. “Dude, you need to put that out.”

  He laughed at me and reached for his can of beer. “Why?”

  “My sister’s coming up, and she can’t know what I’m getting myself into.” Did I just sell my soul to the devil? No worse, to Danny.

  This perked Danny up, if only a little. He dropped the cigarette into his beer can and reached for the air freshener, which he sprayed around his face. Coughing, he also stumbled to his feet. “It’s a yes to my business offer, then?”

  “Sure. Don’t see what else I can do.” Maybe if I said yes, he’d give me a ride and a loan to NYC where I could wait tables or something until my big break. There were footsteps thundering down the hall. “Give me.” I reached for the can of air freshener, which turned out to be straight up disinfectant, and threw it into a trashcan. “Best behavior.”

  He started fixing his hair, which was a curly mess on top of his head. “Your sister’s the hot one, right?”

  I groaned. “Danny, no flirting. She’s got a guy with her.”

  He frowned. “The Home Ec. guy?”

  I nodded.

  “I can take him.” He straightened his clothes, which were nice but stained with sweat and a couple of food splotches. He tried cleaning up but ended up falling all over himself.

  “You can barely take yourself, Danny. Just sit down and don’t talk too much.”

  I unlocked the door and stepped back. Julianna was standing there with some tall guy. He was so tall, he had Danny beat. And this guy was making a face. So was Julianna.

  She gave me a look that said, “What smells so awful?” coughed and added, “Maybe now is a bad time.”

  I glanced at Danny, who had passed out on the sofa and was snoring. “Er, maybe.”

  But the guy with her put an arm around her shoulder, and he started to talk. My drunken brain couldn’t make out everything he was saying. Oh, he is an actor, I found myself thinking as he asked me for something.

  Julianna held out her left hand and pointed to something. The next thing I knew, she was hugging me, asking me to do something, and just like that, the two couldn’t seem to take the smell any longer, and beat it.

  I remember shutting the door . . . and then passing out in the entryway.

  2007

  My first three months in New York City went something like this:

  1.Eat

  2.Sleep

  3.Job-hunt

  4.Ask Mom to wire me m
ore money.

  Lather, rinse, repeat.

  I didn’t bother asking Julianna for anything. She still had her inheritance from Dad, but I knew she was ticked about me missing her wedding.

  Sure I worked and brought in some money. But busing tables at a small diner didn’t even cover the security deposit on an apartment, so I’d been living in a roach-ridden motel off what I earned and what I was sent, trying to scrape together enough coin to pay for necessities.

  On the first day of my fourth month in the Big Apple, I was on my way to an audition, my fifth attempt at breaking into a real show. When I got to the theater, I spotted Danny talking to some seedy-looking character. I froze on the sidewalk, getting jostled and sworn at by passing pedestrians. You can’t stay still long in the Big Apple.

  Danny and I were supposed to audition together for some play by some genius up-and-coming playwright. At least, that’s what he had told me over the phone. But I saw something change hands between him and this stranger. It was subtle, so I started to doubt myself. “He said he was done with those people.”

  “Skip! Hey, over here,” Danny said over the street din.

  I made my way toward him and no longer got bumped around by the crowd. “You’re early,” I said as we headed into the theater’s foyer. I stared at him a few seconds longer and grunted. “What happened to you?”

  Danny, he just laughed. His hair was thinning, and he had the appearance of someone who’s had a hard time of it. But he was dressed all fancy-shmancy, and his watch was too detailed to be a knock-off.

  I peered around the nearly empty foyer and frowned. “I didn’t think we were so early.” Where were all the wannabes? The ingénues? The has-beens? This was an open casting call, after all; it was our shot at getting our feet in the stage door. Nothing about this was making any sense.

  Clearing his throat, Danny motioned for me to follow him toward the coatroom. “I wasn’t entirely honest in getting you here, Skip.”

  I groaned and my hopes dropped to the floor. “I am not checking coats. I draw the line of servitude at clearing greasy tables, not handling old ladies’ musty old shawls and sweaty gloves.”